_THE SURVEY OF SAMARIA._
My first experiences of Palestine survey were from the camp at
Nâblus,[35] the ancient Shechem. The method which we then employed was
very little varied throughout the whole period of our labours. The camp,
consisting of three or four tents, was pitched in some convenient
central position by a town or village. Thence we were able to ride eight
or ten miles all round, and first visited a few of the highest
hill-tops, where, when the observations with the theodolites were
complete, we built great cairns of stone. The survey was
trigonometrical, depending on two bases, one near Ramleh, east of Jaffa,
the other in the plain of Esdraelon, north of Jenin. In 1881 I measured
a third base on the Moab plateau, south of Heshbon. All these were
connected by triangulation, the stations being from five to fifteen
miles apart. The heights of these stations were also fixed by theodolite
angles, and thus the elevations above the sea of every great mountain
from Dan to Beersheba, and of those east of Jordan between the Jabbok
and the Arnon, are known within a limit of four or five feet at least.
The triangles having been calculated in camp, the surveyors separated,
and each with his prismatic compass worked in the detail of roads,
valley beds, villages, ruins, towers, and all that is usually shown on
maps of this scale by Ordnance surveyors. He took the aneroid heights of
all important points, which I regard as reliable within ten or twenty
feet. He was invariably accompanied by a local guide, who gave the names
of the various features shown. The surveyor was never responsible for
the spelling of these names. A native scribe was employed to catalogue
them in Arabic letters, and thus the errors which might have been caused
by the difficulty of distinguishing the sounds of Arab letters were
avoided. Without such precaution it would have been impossible to make
any scientific comparison with the Hebrew names of the Old Testament.
This work being complete and penned in, we were ready to move the camp.
There are parts of the map which I executed to assist my staff, but, as
a rule, when the triangulation was complete, I was free to spend much of
my time in exploring the important sites within reach, of which I made
special surveys on a larger scale.
The explorer is, however, not his own master until he becomes
practically acquainted with the language of the natives; and although I
had learned French in France and Italian in Italy, the acquisition of a
Semitic tongue was only so far rendered easy, that no one who has
learned one foreign language grammatically and idiomatically is likely
to be content with any other kind of knowledge of other tongues. At the
same time, those who have had the advantage of studying foreign
languages on the spot know how much easier and more agreeable it is to
learn them, as a child learns his mother tongue, first by practice,
afterwards by the rules of the grammarian. In the East, the spoken
dialects, such as those of Arabic and Turkish, differ greatly from the
literary languages. In speaking, simplicity and brevity take the place
of the high-flown and artificial refinements of the modern grammarian.
The vernacular grammar is simplicity itself compared with the literary
style, which only schoolmasters or pedants affect in everyday speech.
Nor, indeed, is such indifference to strict grammar unknown even in our
own land, though in a less degree, in spoken as compared with written
phrase.
At first there was only time to obtain a very superficial smattering,
for everyday uses, of the Fellah dialect, which is archaic and rude as
compared with the _Nahu_ or “correct” language; but it appeared to me
absolutely necessary, not only to understand the Arabic alphabet, but
also to become acquainted with the elements at least of grammatical
structure; and for this I found leisure during the winters, and the
summer holiday of 1873, when a native teacher could be obtained from
Damascus. When once the unfamiliar principles of Semitic grammar are
understood in one language of the small group (including Hebrew, Arabic,
and the Aramean dialects), the student should be able to learn other
tongues of the group by the aid of books; but my first lessons in Hebrew
I owe to the kind interest of a friend since dead, who devoted time to
my education in Jerusalem itself. So unlike in structure are these
tongues to either Aryan or Turanian languages, that the idiom is at
first hard to catch; and I doubt if any European, until he has lived in
the East some time, is ever likely correctly to pronounce the gutturals
of the Arabic, unless he is gifted with an ear much more sensitive than
usual.
After many years’ study of the native dialect, it appears to me that its
further investigation would be of great value to scholars. There can be
no doubt that ordinary conversation of the peasantry preserves archaisms
of sound, of idiom, and of expression which recall rather the Aramaic
spoken in Palestine in the days of Christ than the pure Arabic of
southern Arabia. The Syrian dialect (which is much less degraded than
Egyptian) is acknowledged, even in dictionaries, to have its
peculiarities. The Lebanon servants in my employ were almost unable to
understand the speech of the Beni Sakhr Arabs in the Moab desert. The
dialect of the towns differs, again, especially in pronunciation, from
that of the peasants. The convenient auxiliaries used in daily speech
are not recognised in standard grammars, and not a few familiar words of
the Fellah dialect I have been unable to discover in the standard
dictionaries of Lane and Freytag.[36] The Hebrew _goran_, “a threshing
floor,” and _moreg_, “a threshing-sledge,” are still words used by the
peasants, as is the Assyrian _sada_, for a “mountain,” and many other
ancient words which a good Hebrew scholar will recognise. The peasantry,
in short, are not, properly speaking, Arabs, but descendants, in part at
least, of the old population to which the Phœnicians belonged,
mingled with colonists imported by the Assyrians from Aram, and with the
Nabathean and Arab tribes from the south-east. To one acquainted with
such a race, the narratives of Genesis and Samuel must always read as
though falling from the lips of a modern Syrian, speaking with the same
terse vigorous idiom in which his fathers wrote. The Fellahin have been
called “modern Canaanites,” and if by this is meant descendants of the
Semitic race which the Egyptians found in Palestine before the time of
the Hebrew conquest under Joshua--akin to those whose language is
represented by the Moabite Stone, and the Phœnician texts from the
north coast--the term seems justified by what is known; but, as we shall
see a little later, there has always been another population in Syria
side by side with the Semitic, of which a few traces are yet
discoverable not far north of Shechem.
Ancient Shechem stood very nearly on the same site occupied by the large
stone town of Nâblus, in the well-watered gorge, full of gardens of
mulberry and walnut, with vineyards and olive-yards and fig trees, above
which rise the barren slopes, of Ebal on the north and Gerizim on the
south. About one and a half miles to the east, where the vale opens into
the small plain of Moreh, is the undisputed site of Jacob’s Well; and
north of this, at the foot of Ebal, the little village of Askar, among
its cactus hedges, preserves the site of Sychar, mentioned in the fourth
Gospel, below which is the tomb of Joseph.
It is curious that Josephus believed Joseph to have been buried at
Hebron, for the Book of Joshua places his tomb at Shechem. The monument
now shown is an ordinary Syrian tomb in an open-air enclosure by a
little ruined mosque. The peculiar feature consists in two pedestals
with shallow cups in their tops, placed one at the head, the other at
the foot of the grave. I have been told that both Jews and Samaritans
offer burnt-offerings at this shrine on these pillar altars, the
offerings consisting of shawls, silks, and such fabrics. The same
practice is observed by Jews annually at the tomb of the celebrated
Simeon Bar Jochai at Meirûn, in Upper Galilee. The substitution of
fabrics for animal sacrifices recalls the paper figures which the
Chinese burn, representing the various sacrifices, animal or human,
which in earlier ages were burned at tombs.
Shechem has long been a place of special interest, because it is the
last refuge of the few survivors of the old Samaritan sect, which,
according to their own records, once inhabited every part of Galilee and
Samaria, and whose synagogues down to quite recent times existed in
Damascus and Alexandria. Although almost every traveller visits their
synagogue at Nâblus, it is very difficult to become intimately
acquainted with this proud and reserved people; and there are very few
persons living who have really seen the oldest of the manuscripts of the
Pentateuch which they possess. Scholars, it is true, no longer attach
the exaggerated value to this document which it was thought to possess
when first attention was called to its existence, and before science was
able to show its comparatively modern date, as indicated by the
character in which it is written. Yet this venerable roll is perhaps the
oldest copy of the Bible in the world, and until it has been read by a
competent scholar, it is impossible to say what light it may throw on
the study of the Pentateuch.
The Samaritans, according to the latest accounts which I have been able
to obtain, number about 160 persons. I had opportunities not only of
visiting their synagogue, but of holding a long conversation with the
high priest, and questioning him concerning their traditions and
literature. They claim to know not only the real tombs of Joseph and
Joshua, and of the sons and grandsons of Aaron, sites which are now
identified, but also the burial-places of all the sons of Jacob, of
which tombs many are also revered by Moslems; but the reliability of
such traditions is not very certain. The Samaritan chronicles are not
traceable beyond the Middle Ages; but one of these (to be distinguished
from their “Book of Joshua,” with its wild legends of Alexander the
Great) is a very sober work, to which successive high priests are said
to have added brief notes of the chief events of their age.[37] Of this
chronicle I made careful study, and found that, as regards its geography
at least, it is possible to obtain a very clear idea, and many
interesting notices are included of places otherwise very little known
in all parts of Palestine. This practice of extending a historic journal
from time to time is worthy the attention of students of other ancient
literatures; and although the chronicle only claims to have been started
by Eleazar ben Amran in 1149 A.D., it has been carried down to 1859 by
successive authors. This chronicle presents, as above noted, a great
contrast to their “Book of Joshua,” which is full of Samaritan folk-lore
tales, and consists of two parts, one penned in 1362 A.D., and the
second in 1513 A.D. Of their copies of the Pentateuch, kept in the
Synagogue, the oldest of those usually shown dates only from 1456 A.D.;
the date of the oldest of all, called “Abishuah’s Roll,” is not yet
known, but it is certainly very ancient, the ink being much faded and
the parchment decayed. The fact that a Samaritan text of the sixth
century is built into a tower near the Synagogue, and preserves letters
of the peculiar character employed by this people, seems to show that
not impossibly Abishuah’s Roll may be as old as the sixth or seventh
century of our era.
The Samaritans are a fine race, above the average of Orientals in
stature, and possessing a beauty of feature and complexion very like the
best type of south European Jews. Even in the peculiar crinkle of the
hair they resemble the Jews, and there can, to my mind, be no doubt that
they are more closely allied by blood to their great rivals than they
are to any other Oriental people. It is impossible here to inquire into
the details of their history, which are very generally known, but the
inquiries made by us at various times agree with former researches in
indicating that, in many particulars, the pietists of Nâblus have
preserved the letter of their law in more primitive degree than have
even the Karaites or other puritan Jewish sects which discard Talmudic
teaching. So great is their terror of defilement, that they will not
even close the eyes of their dead, and employ Moslems to prepare them
for burial. In this extreme observance they resemble the Falashas or
Abyssinian Jewish converts, who even take the sick out of their houses
before death. One very curious custom is observed when, on the eighth
day, the Samaritan boys are circumcised. An ancient hymn is sung, which
includes a prayer for a certain Roman soldier named German, because he
connived at circumcision when forbidden by the Romans, and refused to
accept any reward for so doing, asking only to be remembered in their
prayers; which desire has been respected for perhaps sixteen hundred
years.
Shechem, the home of the Samaritans, has often, from the twelfth century
to the present day, been confounded with the city of Samaria, five miles
farther to the north-west; but at the latter site there are, I believe,
no Samaritans living. The peasant population of Palestine in this
central district differs somewhat, however, from that of either Galilee
or Judea. It was here that we found the peculiar head-dress which
recalls the “round tires like the moon” that roused the Hebrew prophet’s
wrath (Isa. iii. 18). These horse-shoe head-dresses, made up of large
silver coins laid overlapping, are worn only by married women, often
with a crimson head-veil. Some of the little terra-cotta statues of
Ashtoreth which are found in Cyprus and in Phœnicia, representing a
naked goddess, have just the same crescent-shaped bonnet, and it was
perhaps originally connected with the worship of this deity, and
therefore hateful to the servant of Jehovah.
The site of Samaria is that of a considerable town, upon an isolated
hill, with springs in the valley and olives climbing the terraced
slopes. On the summit a colonnade, probably of the age of Herod the
Great, runs round a long quadrangle, enclosing the site of the temple
built in honour of Augustus by Herodian servility; and on one side are
the ruins of the great Crusading Church of St. John, in the crypt of
which was shown his tomb. It was believed in the Middle Ages that the
head of the Baptist was here preserved. St. John had apparently two
heads, since another was shown in Damascus.
There is no doubt that the tomb in question is an ancient Hebrew
sepulchre. Perhaps it may be that of the “Kings of Israel.” At least
eleven bodies could have been here interred, and there were only
thirteen Kings of Israel between Omri and the fall of Samaria.[38] An
ancient stone door once closed this tomb, carved in panels like other
doors of tombs in Palestine belonging to an early age. One which was
found farther south was adorned with the heads of lions and bulls, like
those found in Phœnician sarcophagi. The date of these monuments is
uncertain. In Lycia, Sir Charles Fellows found doors sculptured with
exactly the same ornamental details, which may be as old at least as 500
B.C.
[Illustration: KURN SARTABA.]
East of Shechem, and to the south, there are mountains more rugged than
any south of Galilee. The border of Samaria, which divided it from
Judea, ran through these mountains, following the line of the principal
valley bed. It had never been laid down with any attempt at exactness
before the Survey, but now that the position of the border towns is
correctly fixed, it becomes possible to trace it throughout. The Judean
outpost on the north-east was the extraordinary conical mountain called
Sartaba, which rises from the Jordan Valley. This little-visited peak
was thoroughly explored. On the summit a square foundation was
discovered, surrounded by an oval rampart. The cone has been
artificially cut in places, and is some 270 feet high. The remains may
be those of the fourteenth-century fortress, but the site has a much
earlier history.
On their return from exile the Jews were accustomed to fix the first day
of each month by actual observation of the new moon, and according to
the Mishna, the announcement was made throughout the Holy Land by means
of bonfires on the mountains. One of these bonfire stations was Sartaba,
and it is not impossible that the remains of extensive ash-deposits
observed on the mountain were traces of such beacons. The practice was
open to mistake, for the Jews assert that the Samaritans used to light
fires on neighbouring heights with the malicious intention of confusing
the Jewish calendar, and making the Passover feast to fall on the wrong
day. Whether we are to credit the statement that this chain of beacons
extended even to Mesopotamia is doubtful, but the Jews certainly long
kept up intercourse with their brethren in Babylonia.
On the south of Shechem rises the great rounded top of Gerizim, whence
the eye ranges from Gilead to the Mediterranean, and on the north to
dusky Carmel and snowy Hermon. On the south side of the mountain is Kefr
Hâris, where, according to the Samaritans, Joshua was buried--a
tradition nowise discordant with the statements of the Old Testament,
and which can be traced back at least to the fourth century. Here also
the peasants show the tomb of his father, Nun. On the mountain-side,
near the summit, the Passover is still eaten, and here, as the
Samaritans say, once stood their temple. There are no remains of any
great building, but a sacred slab of rock, in which is one of those
curious “cup hollows” so frequently found in connection with prehistoric
monuments. On the west, the Sharon plain extends beyond the olive groves
of the foot-hills to the dark ruined ramparts of Cæsarea--a region which
was surveyed in the spring of 1873, and many interesting ruins were then
explored. It is one of the most lawless parts of the country, and was
then but little cultivated. Scattered oak woods, sandy dunes, marshes,
and boggy streams occupy great part of its extent; and on the north is
the Crocodile River, still the dwelling of these monsters, who are not
found in other streams, but lie in the muddy river under the papyrus or
amid the reeds as comfortably as in the Nile.
The crocodiles of this region are mentioned by many writers, from Pliny
downwards. A curious story was told in the thirteenth century, according
to which they were imported from Egypt by a lord of Cæsarea, in order
that his brother might become their victim. The brothers went to bathe
in the river, but the wicked lord went in first and was eaten, while his
innocent brother escaped.
This part of the plain of Sharon and the west side of the Esdraelon
plain are the only places in Palestine, so far as I have been able to
ascertain, where Turkoman encampments are found. In Northern Syria the
Turkoman camps are more numerous. I have visited their tents in the
plains near Kadesh on Orontes, and in the oak-dotted vale where the
Eleutherus rises. To the casual visitor they seem to be Bedu, and indeed
those in the Sharon plain have almost forgotten their original language.
We know historically that a horde of the followers of Ghazan Khan in
1295 A.D., consisting, it is said, of 18,000 tents, came down to
Damascus and settled on the coasts of Palestine. Probably the existing
Turkoman tribes are the last relics of this horde; but in this mixture
of Tartars with the Semitic race of Syria we see still surviving a
condition of population as old as the days of Abraham. It is now the
general opinion of competent scholars that the non-Semitic population
which the Egyptians in the sixteenth century B.C. found in Syria--more
especially in the north--was a Mongolic race. The monuments show that in
feature they were Mongolian and that they wore the Tartar pigtail, and
the names of their chiefs and towns tell the same tale. The Turkomans
are degraded representatives of a kindred race. The Turkish masters of
Palestine hold now the same position which the Hittite princes held in
the days of Abraham and Solomon as over-lords in a country whose
inhabitants were mainly of another race.
The greater part of the Jordan Valley lies within the boundaries of
Samaria, and it was for this reason that Galilean Jews travelling to
Jerusalem crossed the Jordan and journeyed down the left bank to
Jericho, where they crossed again without having approached the country
of heresy. As regards the western borders of Samaria, there is less
certainty perhaps, but such information as we possess seems to show that
the limits of this province must be extended to the sea-shore.[39]
Indeed, had it been otherwise, the journey from Galilee along the coast
would always have been preferable to that along the east side of the
Jordan Valley. It must be confessed that the Samaritans possessed some
of the best land in Palestine.
Since the greater part of the Jordan Valley thus belonged to Samaria,
the exploration of the valley may be here noticed. The survey of the
plains of Jericho has been recorded in the preceding chapter. From
Jericho in the early spring of 1874 the party proceeded northwards, and
by April, in spite of very bad weather, the work was finished within a
few miles of the Sea of Galilee.
The total length of the valley is about a hundred miles from the Sea of
Galilee to the Dead Sea. The level of the latter Sir Charles Wilson has
determined as 1292 feet below the Mediterranean. The former, as
determined by the line of levels which, under a grant from the British
Association, I commenced in 1875, and which was completed in 1877, is
682 feet below the same datum. Thus the average fall of the river is 600
feet in a hundred miles, but the upper part of the course is the more
rapid, falling about 400 feet in fifty miles. The width is pretty
constant along the whole course, the evaporation counterbalancing the
additional flow of the Jabbok and other affluents. The volume of water
brought down by the Jordan, and evaporated during the summer months in
the Dead Sea, makes a difference of fifteen feet between the summer and
winter surface of that sea over an area of about 400 square miles. The
flow is greatest when the snows on Hermon begin to melt, about the time
of Passover, when “Jordan overfloweth its banks all the time of
harvest;” for harvest in this deep valley is much earlier than even in
the Sharon plains. The river flows in a narrow bed between banks of
marl, and the Zor, or depressed channel on either side, averages about a
mile across, flanked by white cliffs and steep slopes fifty feet high.
In high flood this channel is at times all under water, and the river
becomes about a mile wide, but soon sinks within its natural borders.
The Zor is filled with brushwood of tamarisk, agnus-castus, and other
vegetation, and in places the river is hidden between the bushes and
cane beds. Near the fords it is seen as a brown swirling stream with a
rapid current. In the upper part of its course there are numerous fords
and small rapids. No less than forty crossing places, nearly all of
which were previously unknown, were marked by the surveyors.
[Illustration: THE JORDAN VALLEY (ESH EL GHURAB).]
The most interesting discovery in connection with the river was that of
the ford called ’Abârah. The name was found in one place only, and does
not recur in the ten thousand names collected during the survey. It was
applied by the Arabs to one of the chief fords leading over to Bashan,
in the vicinity of Bethshean, where the road from Galilee comes down the
tributary valley of Jezreel. ’Abârah means “ferry” or “crossing,” and
there is no doubt that it is the same word which occurs in Beth Abârah,
“the house of the crossing,” mentioned (John i. 28) as a place where
John preached, and where, according to the usual opinion, Christ was
Himself baptized.
The traditional site of the Baptism, from the fourth century down to the
present day, lies much farther south, at the ford east of Jericho, where
Israel crossed from Moab to Gilgal; but the distance from this spot to
Cana of Galilee is so great, that it is impossible to reconcile this
tradition with the New Testament account. Nor is there anything in that
account which points to this southern site. The visit yearly paid by
Greek pilgrims to the traditional spot, near Justinian’s old monastery
of St. John on Jordan, has often been described. In the sixth century
Antoninus speaks of the vast crowd which used there to assemble at the
Feast of Epiphany, when it was believed that Jordan yearly rolled itself
back and stood still till the baptisms were ended. “And all the men of
Alexandria who have ships, with their crews, holding baskets full of
spices and balsams, at the hour when the priest blesses the water,
before they begin to baptize, throw those baskets into the river, and
take thence holy water, with which they sprinkle their ships before they
leave port for a voyage.”
It must be confessed that these offerings to the Jordan savour of
paganism rather than of Christianity. Sennacherib, before he crossed the
river-mouths at the Persian Gulf, threw gold and silver fishes into the
water. Alexander the Great, in like manner, according to Arrian,
offered a golden goblet to the Indus. In Etruria the Lake of Ciliegeto
was found full of bronze _ex votos_, with coins and other objects,
thrown by pious visitors into the water, and other instances are known
in India. Nor is this a solitary example in which the practices of
Byzantine Christians in Palestine are intimately connected with the
older pagan rites of the country.
There is, as before said, no strong reason for accepting this
traditional site for Bethabara. Some of the earliest MSS. of the Gospel
read Bethania for Bethabara; but Origen disputed this reading, and
Bethania is probably the later form of the Hebrew word Bashan. Bethabara
is found at least in the Codex Ephraemi (C^{2}), and Origen says that
nearly all copies of the Gospel in his time had this reading. It would
seem then probable that the scene is to be laid, not in the lower, but
in the upper part of the Jordan Valley, where the highway from Galilee
crosses over to Bashan, where, gay with flowers and carpeted with grass,
the plain, dotted with stunted palms, extends between the basalt heights
crowned by the Crusading Castle of Beauvoir and the long slopes round
Pella, the home of the early Ebionites, who fled from the destruction of
Jerusalem, and formed a quiet Christian community in the wilderness
where John had baptized.
Few more beautiful scenes can be desired than that which the Jordan
Valley presents in spring, when the grass has grown long, and the eye
looks down from the hill on the wide stretches of varied colour which
fields of wild-flowers present. The pale pink of the phlox, of the wild
geranium and cistus, the yellow of the St. John’s wort and of the
marigold, the deep red of the pheasant’s-eye and anemone, the lavender
of the wild stock are mingled with white and purple clover, white
garlic and purple salvia, snapdragons, star-daisies, and the earlier
narcissus. The _retem_, or white broom--the juniper of Scripture--is
then in blossom; the long wreaths of vapour cling to the stony mountains
of Gilead, and hide its oak glades and firs. The stork pilgrims have
come from the south, bringing the spring-time, and rest their weary
wings by the marshy brooks round Bethshean, where the chorus of frogs
day and night invites their own destruction.
But towards the south the saltness of the soil is too great for such
vegetation. For five or six miles north of the Dead Sea the marl flats
support only the low bushes of the alkali plant. Even half-way up the
valley there are salt springs and tracts of barren salt marl; and one of
our camps in the narrow gorge called Wâdy Mâleh (“the Valley of Salt”)
was placed beside a hot sulphurous spring too brackish to drink. For
several days we experienced much discomfort in this volcanic ravine, and
had to fetch water from a considerable distance. These traces of
volcanic action occur from north to south on both sides of the Jordan
Valley. Beds of lava and basalt occur both west and east of the Sea of
Galilee, and again east of the Dead Sea. Hot springs are found on either
shore of that sea, and again at the famous Baths of Gadara, and at those
of Hammath near Tiberias. Even in times long after the great fault had
rent this mighty gorge from north to south, tearing asunder the
sandstone beds, and bending down the chalk strata on the west, forming
the chain of lakes between Hermon and the Arabah of which the Dead Sea
and Sea of Galilee are the last relics, and of which we traced the
raised beaches far up the valley--long after all these convulsions,
fiery streams of lava flowed over the plains of Bashan, and reached the
shores of Tiberias, and covered the cliffs to the west with black
volcanic rocks, which form rolling downs of treeless land. Nor was this
energy spent even in late historic times, when the great earthquake of
1837 overthrew the town of Safed, and raised the temperature of the hot
springs in the valley.
Among the curious delusions which seem destined again and again to
recover from the ridicule cast upon them by practical knowledge is the
famous fallacy of a Jordan Valley Canal. Leaving aside the question of
an expenditure to which that of the Panama Canal cannot compare, the
theorists who have proposed this wild scheme do not seem to reflect that
the whole volume of the Jordan never suffices permanently to alter the
Dead Sea level. The canal then must let in much more water than the
river. If it were possible to fill this valley to sea-level--as no doubt
it may once have been filled by Nature herself--not only would the crops
of the inhabitants be overwhelmed, with the villages of Jericho and
Delhemiyeh and the town of Tiberias, but the sea so formed would extend
to a breadth of from ten to twenty miles, covering all the villages and
corn-lands of the valley of Jezreel. It is almost incredible that this
chimera should have received serious support from influential and monied
believers in the unlimited powers of modern engineering. A very simple
calculation shows that were the sea admitted by such a canal as was
proposed in 1883, it might pour into the valley, but could never make
headway against the enormous power of evaporation in this burning gulf.
Even on the higher plateau near Damascus the rushing stream of the
Abana is unable to penetrate far into the desert, and sinks in the
marshes of the Birket ’Ateibeh.[40]
The exploration of the valley was one of the most trying periods of the
Survey. At first a constant downpour of rain, with clouds scudding along
below sea-level, and storms of snow and hail interrupting the
observations from the hill stations, delayed our progress. Afterwards
the want of fresh water at Wâdy Mâleh proved very trying; then the
marshy land round Bethshean brought fever into the camp; lastly, the
intense heat obliged us to work in the very early hours of dawning
light, and nearly cost me a sunstroke.
There was also great difficulty in obtaining supplies and transport. Our
party was by this time so well organised that no time, as a rule, was
lost in changing camp. But in the valley we waited day after day in the
wet, suffering some of us from rheumatism, and unable to move the sodden
and heavy tents. Our first camp was at Wâdy Fusail, near the site of the
ancient Phasaelis; and here we found it almost impossible to get any of
the Bedu to stay with us. The reason, true or not, which they gave for
avoiding the place was, that it is haunted by a ghoul,--that evil and
corpse-eating demon whose haunts are shown all over Syria. More than
once, while exploring a dark cavern or descending a rock-cut tunnel, we
have heard the frightened guide shouting outside, and found him
astonished to see us emerge in safety from the ghoul’s den. The ghoul
lives also in the great dolmens and in hermits’ caves; but though I have
felt on one occasion, in a tunnel where it was necessary to crawl flat,
the frightened bats creeping in my hair, I have never been privileged to
see or hear a ghoul.
The Wâdy Fusail ghoul, however, was the cause of much delay, and when at
last we induced the Arabs to come by daylight with camels, we found that
they never used saddles, and their camels were, indeed, almost untrained
and very small. We missed the sturdy beasts used by the peasantry, and
had very great difficulty in loading the desert dromedaries at all.
It was a pleasure, in the times when the party was well provided with
transport, to watch the expedition on the march. The horsemen, on trusty
Arab ponies, never sick or sorry, never baffled by the stoniest
bridle-path, came first, with our breed of white terriers, which were
hardly recognised as dogs by the natives, and which often, night after
night, saved us from the depredations of determined horse-thieves.
Behind the horsemen came our own baggage-mules, carrying all that was
needful for the first founding of the new camp; behind these, again, the
camels with heavy stores swung slowly along, while the Maronites, on
their donkeys, the Bedu guides on horses and dromedaries, formed a
picturesque straggling band, which, as reviewed from a low hill,
sometimes extended over half a mile of road. It is pleasant to reflect
that, in the years we worked together, there was no dissension, no
desertion, and no grumbling in the camp. We suffered together in seasons
of sickness, but we stuck together as long as health lasted, and till
the work, was done.
[Illustration: A CAMP IN THE JORDAN VALLEY.]
One of the most picturesque incidents of the Survey was a night-raid
which occurred at Sulem (the ancient Shunem), where, with Sergeant
Black, I was for a few days at a detached camp. At this time the
difficulties of transport obliged us to separate from the rest of the
party, and to remain without meat, and with very little other food, for
three days. In the darkness, after a fatiguing day’s work, we were
roused by the shouts of the villagers, and hastily loading our
shot-guns, we turned out to witness a skirmish with the Bedu. Whether
the raid was intended to capture our horses or to drive off cattle from
the village was uncertain; but the dogs discovered a robber just about
to cut the halters, and the hillside was for some time illumined by the
flashes from the old matchlocks of the villagers, while the war-song of
the retreating Arabs faded in the distance. Failing to surprise, the
raiders quickly gave up their enterprise, but drove off a stray cow in
the darkness. With such night-attacks we became more familiar
afterwards in the wilder parts of the Moabite deserts.
The hardships of this campaign cost us dear. They were severe for the
strongest, and for my comrade, Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, they were fatal. As
already stated, the terrible Jericho fever had undermined his strength;
and though he was successfully nursed through that attack, I have always
regretted that he would not hear advice, tendered with the most friendly
intention, that he should leave Palestine at least for a time. During
the months we spent in the valley he suffered constantly from ague,
asthma, and the terrible fever sores, from which no member of the party
escaped. Finally, he was almost unable to ride, and when we reached the
higher lands, rest was absolutely necessary. I left him with anxious
foreboding; and as he wished during my absence in England to make a tour
in Northern Syria, I wrote to friends at Damascus, begging them not to
let him travel alone. Hardly, however, had he reached Jerusalem when the
fever again seized him, and his grave is now marked by a simple monument
in the Protestant cemetery on Sion. There can be no doubt that he fell a
victim to his own earnest desire to continue his work after his powers
of endurance were exhausted.
The share which he took in Palestine exploration has been fully
acknowledged in more than one publication. In many respects he was
peculiarly fitted for an explorer’s work. Of tall and commanding
appearance, with a grave and reserved manner, such as most impresses the
Oriental, with a kindliness for man and beast, which made the natives
who had long served him much attached to his person, with a power of
silent endurance, which made him scorn to utter a single complaint in
the midst of trial and suffering constantly endured--especially in
frequent attacks of asthma, Mr. Drake was a pattern of that class of
Englishmen of whom we are proudest. Had he lived, his name would have
been widely known as a bold and trained explorer. I have heard a French
traveller, after talking with him, exclaim, “If we had such men among
the youths of France, it would be better for our country.” I am happy to
be able to reflect that, during those three years of constant intimacy,
in the trying isolation of our camp-life, we never fell out; that our
last hand-shake was that of comrades who had suffered and worked with
single purpose; and that he trusted me to represent at home, at its
proper value, the share which he had contributed to our common work.